Snowboarding is now well established worldwide as a recreational and competitive sport. In addition to being able to undertake a variety of aerial jumps and spins snowboarders and skiers have the opportunity to perform these in specially constructed terrain features such as snow half pipes. A half-pipe is a channel substantially U-shaped in cross-section consisting of two concave ramps (or quarter pipes), topped by decks, facing each other across the channel. In many instances the basic shape of half pipes are created in summer out of rock and soil and in winter covered in snow either naturally or artificially.
A half pipe can be made of various lengths but in the main does not exceed 150 meters in length. The half pipe's plane of transition is orientated downhill at a slight inclination. This enables riders to use gravity to assist them to perform their various maneuvers. The character of a half pipe depends on the relationship between four important qualities being the transition radius and the height together with the amount of flat bottom and the width of the half pipe. It is the ratio between height and transition radius that determines the personality and characteristics of any given pipe because this ratio determines the angle of the lip from which the user commences a run.
Currently terrain features such as snow half pipes are created by an arm attachment to a half pipe cutter machine somewhat similar in appearance to a grain elevator. These half pipe cutters suffer from a number of drawbacks including high overall weight and uneven weight distribution which makes them cumbersome to operate and can limit the quality of the snow course and subsequent enjoyment of the user. Further, most known half-pipe cutters are unable to cut above 18 feet without a bolt-on addition to the boom. In addition manual operation of known half pipe cutters can result in inaccurate half pipe formation with an uneven surface due to human error.
It is an object of the present invention to address the foregoing problems or at least to provide the public with a useful choice.
Further aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the ensuing description which is given by way of example only.
It is acknowledged that the term ‘comprising’ may, under varying jurisdictions, be attributed with either an exclusive or an inclusive meaning. For the purpose of this specification, and unless otherwise noted, the term ‘comprising’ shall have an inclusive meaning—i.e. that it will be taken to mean an inclusion of not only the listed components it directly references, but also other non-specified components or elements. This rationale will also be used when the term ‘comprised’ or ‘comprising’ is used in relation to one or more steps in a method or process.